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Tine Library of Congress 



http://www.arGhive.org/details/fieldoffolkOOGona 



^ Field of Folk 



Isabella Howe Fiske 




Boston: Richard G. Badger 

The Gorham Press 



1903 



-■ i i J J y i 

^ J 3 ^ 3 ,) J 1 J 

J ^ ' :> > J ■» i J ) J 






Copyright 1903 by Richard G. Badger 
All Rights Reser'vcd 



THt LlbF:AK<Y OF 
CONGRESS. 

Two Copies Received 

JUN 5 '903 

Q Copyright tntry 

ViLASS ^ XXc. No. 

4^ // ^V 
COPY S, 






Printed at 

The Gorham Press, 
Boston, U. S. A, 






I, 



To My Father 



Contents 



PAGE 

A Field of Folk - - - - 9 

The Herald - - - - 10 

The Coming of Spring - - - 10 

Apple Blossoms . - - - 11 

Migration - - - - 12 

Destiny - - - - - 12 

Compensation - - - - 13 

Aeo^ Tloirjtr}^ - - - - 13 

Afternoon - - - - 34 

The Tree - - - - 14 

Adventure - - - - 15 

Remonstrance - - - - 15 

Awakening - - - - 16 

Moonrise - - - - 16 

Precious Stones - - - - 17 

On the River - - - - 17 

Under The Vine . - - - 18 

Solution - - - - - 18 

Elegy - - - - 19 

Treason - - - - 20 

In Motley - - - - 20 

The Hive - - - - 21 

Mica - - - - 21 

Metamorphosis - - - - 22 

An Apostle of The Oak - - - 23 

Yellow Jessamine - - - 24 



i- 



Psyche 


- 


24 


Prelude 


- . 


25 


Intimations - - - 


- 


25 


St. Luke's Summer 


- 


26 


Harvest - - - - 


. 


26 


Betrothal 


- ■ 


27 


Nuptials - - - 


•- 


27 


In The Arena 


- 


28 


Indian Summer - - - 


_ 


28 


Urn-Burial 


- 


29 


Matins 




29 


Blue-Hill 


- 


30 


The First Snowfall 


- 


30 


Evensong 


- 


31 


Scotch Invocation 


- 


3^ 


Apollo and The Cedar - 


- 


31 


...^...The Glacier 




32 


A Truce of God - 


- 


34 


Isolation 


- 


35 


*'I Have Called Thee By Name" 


- 


36 


To My Horse, ^^Chevalier" 


- 


37 


Smoke 


- 


37 


Foreboding . . - 


- 


38 


Insular 


- 


38 


Elements 


- 


' 39 


In Florence 


- 


39 


Song Against Love 


- 


40 


Homespun 


- 


40 


1 Counterpoint 

U,«.^ Limitation 


- 


41 


- 


41 


Song 


- 


42 


Offertory - - - . 


- 


42 


The City on the Hillside 


- 


42 



L-^sw^' 



PAGE 

The Face of Man . . 43 
Horizon ----- 43 
Sleep - - - - - 44 
The King is Dead - - - 44 
Inspiration - . - - 45 
Vigil - - - - - 46 
Knighted - - - - 46 
From the Ghetto - - - - 47 
Circumstance - - - - 47 
The City Street - - - 48 
The Tenement - - - - 49 
Dwellings - - - - 50 
Town and Country - - - 50 
Where Children Play - - . ^i 
The Fabric of th^ Fields - - 52 
Sidney Lanier's Flute - - - 53 
Pine Woods - - - - ^;^ 
Wachusett - - - - 54 
New England - - - - 54 
The Organist - - - - 55 
The Chamber of Life - - - 55 
The Flight of Birds over a Sunken Sea- 
board - - - - 56 
A Sea-Change - - . - 56 
The City - - - - 57 
To Ink Spilled on my Desk - - 57 
What Flush Might Have Said - - 58 
The Arno - - - - 58 
Nausicaa . . . . ^9 
Endymion - - - - 59 
In Omar's Tent - - - - 60 
The Heat of the Day - - - 60 
Brotherhood . - . . 60 



PAGE 

A Dreamer of the Ghetto - - 6i 

Anniversaries - - - - 6i 

Treasures of the East - - - 6i 

Raiment - - - - - 62 

Restored - - - - - 62 

Immune ----- 62 

Paradox - - - - - 63 

Faint-Heart - - - - 63 

Crisis - - - - - 63 

Action ----- 64 

The Kiss . _ . . 64 

Character XapdKtoi » - - 64 

Lease . - > - . 65 

Death and the Sculptor - - - 65 

Folio ----- 65 

In the Vineyard - - - - 66 

Disaster - - - - - 66 

Music ----- 66 

A Guest of Omar - - - 67 



8 



A FIELD OF FOLK 

Piers Plowman, hermit-robed, one May of yore, 
Stood on the hills, his soul at gaze to see 
Round Holy Church, fair Malvern's priory, 

Outlying counties spread, his eyes before. 

And when the vision passed, his waking spoke 

Of a fair woman and a field of folk. 

My hermit heart wins Malvern's hills to-day 
And, looking far afield on human life, 
Sees the same toil, still the same timeless strife. 

And a fair woman stands midmost the way. — 

Who has so climbed can scarce look out in vain 

A summer season on the busy plain. 



THE HERALD 

The brook^s a March-sped messenger 

With tidings of the victory of spring, 
And all the eager wood-folk are astir 

To hear betimes what message he may bring ; 
With fan-fare and exultant shout 

And boast in passing as they silent stare, 
He greets the peasant fields about. 

But when he nears his destination, there 
At the wide entrance of the lake's demesne, 

Where willows hold their court beneath the hill. 
Breathless from haste and awed before the queen. 

He kneels and gives his tidings and is still. 



THE COMING OF SPRING 

White flames of foam consume the meadow's strand, 
Red waves of fire toss ebbing on its sand, 
Spring floods and fires that, interfused, prevail. 
And golden smoke along a sunlit trail 
Where willows are as arras by the throne 
That level rivers kneel before to own 
Young April, consort of the sunlit morn, 
Dafiodil-sceptred of the crocus born, 
Transforming youth's delirious early hours 
To joyous metamorphosis of flowers. 
And down the narrow and expectant street 
The city casements open. Spring to greet. 
Trade's wheels vibrate the slower, as, in dreams, 
The tenement looks out on Arno's gleams. 
And from far woodland glades the waters bring 
The sweet and low compelling of the Spring. 

10 



APPLE-BLOSSOMS 

Sunshine 

A moving dome of fragrance, choired by the' boom 
of the bee, 

Glow of the white and glow of the pink, soul of the 
apple-tree ; 

Sunshine a-riot without and the flicker of shade be- 
low. 

Overhead in the blue doth God the fall of the 
petals know. 

IN THE RAIN 

Not sunshine and not summer, but the morning of 
a day 
When the grass is yet drenched and the sun to 

seek ; 
Firm to the touch and wet to the cheek, 
Half-opened blossoms in a March-like May : 
To yield such sweetness sunshine strives in vain 
As apple petals chilled by early rain. 



1 1 



MIGRATION 

I would hearken and pass in May, 
When the polish of leaves is new, 
And the white clouds ride in the blue, 

When the breeze is a song — a roundelay 
Bidding me open the casement-frame, 
Whispering an old and dreaded name 

And blowing its fears away. 



DESTINY 

Slow-plodding horse-hoofs are the tramp of fate 
To clovers, when the days of June are late 
And a child's patter on the yielding soil 
May crush a score of little lives that toil. 
Yet gladly do I breathe the new-mov/n hay 
And gladly listen to the child at play; 
Here is no tragedy ! — So does God smile 
And watches you, your little busy while. 



12 



COMPENSATION 

My little flower the wheel has crushed, 

The wing of fate too strongly brushed 

Your unresisting white, to-day 

And thou wert plucked but to be thrown away — 

But I have held you in my hand this hour 

A human heart has looked on yeu, a flower, 

And has been made content. Is not that worth 

The longer life of untouched flowers of earth ? 



^eo<^ JJoif/r?/^ 

When God writes sonnets for mankind to read. 

The sky His octave is ; the answering sea 

Is the sextette : 

When God of lyrics findeth need. 

He makes the wind's white touch upon the lakes, 

And all the shifting hollows of the tide 

Beneath the west. 

Rhyme with the sunset or the daw^n that wakes, 

And with the hills that linger, glorified. 

Man's speech at best 

Is colorless and set in black and white ; 

God speaks in hills and rivers, stars and showers. 

In rainbow type, 

Star-capitaled upon the page of night. 

His folio is set. Yet 'tis of ours 

The prototype. 



AFTERNOON 

O hill of sunlit hollows, 

And long blue mists of shade,- 
Like the low flight of swallows 

Into dim substance made, — 
My heart your beauty follows ; 

Forgets to be afraid. 



THE TREE 

I covet not to wander 

Who hold far lands in fee. 
For where I stand, unmoving, 

The broad world comes to me 
Wide wanderers the breezes, 

And storms from over sea, 
Tell me their errant stories 

And set me fancy-free. 

The birds that haunt my leisure 

Bring North and South anear, 
And all man's purest thinking 

Is done where I can hear; 
Below the earth my fibres 

Drink sea-hints, crystal clear. 
And, white amidst my branches 

New worlds of stars appear. 



14 



ADVENTURE 

Ah, my strange morning — think ! 

I have witnessed a duel of warrior-birds 
An unavailing second, and seen sink 
To earth too small a combatant and brave 
For death to single out and thus defy. 

And I have knelt, with pitying words, 
Human-incompetent to save, 

At the passing of a butterfly. 
The struggle of whose soft-hued wings 
Grief to Elysium brings — 
Have I returned enriched or bereaved ? 
For I have greatly joyed and greatly grieved. 



REMONSTRANCE 

You whose estates Philistine 

Show a broad stretch of lawn, 
Whose ostentatious crescents 

Are on the blue prints drawn. 
Have you turned the soil of a garden ? 

Ached when the day was done ? 
Cherished the gleaming color 

Of beet-leaves in the sun ? 
— I venture that you do not know 
The hearts of plants that for you grow. 



15 



AWAKENING 

When daylight nears and darkness falls away, 
Its dreams and imagery, too far and gray 
For four near walls, are gradual-merged in light 
And the room's objects enter into sight. 
Bookshelves and curtains and soft-cushioned chair^ 
Statue and mirror and the like are there ; 
And Andrea^s Madonna meets your search — 
As when the sacristan of some old church 
Dravv^s slowly back the curtain and, in whole, 
Our lady of the sorrows greets the soul. 

Soft-couched in heather in my outdoor room, 
Its walls emerge four-square from out the gloom — 
Book-shelves of boulders, mantel of the hills, 
Mirrors of lakes, low chiming clock of rills. 
The elm-tree's beauty, statued, nude and rich 
Like the Apollo, glimmering in its niche : 
And lo ! there comes the angel of the sun, 
Dawn's master-piece of Mary is begun ; 
White-clustered sunbeams in the east display 
A new annunciation — one more day. 



MOONRISE 

Upon the star-set canvas of the night 

That takes its values from a scale of dreams. 

The moon above the hill rests, at the height 
Madonna's head might reach — its circle seems, 

The Tuscan halo of some spirit nigh, 

Herself invisible — queen of the sky. 



i6 



PRECIOUS STONES 

Do you sing of the diamond and pearl 

That are bought for the whim of a girl 

And whose light the world-wise 

Deem their uttermost prize? 

I would sing of earth's pride ; of the rock, 

Of man's vaunted jewels the mock, — 

That adorns nature's breast 

And whose shadow gives rest 

To man, weary, alone, — 

This is my precious stone. 



ON THE RIVER 

Thy siren-song is sweet, my tree, 
I know thee for my Lorelei ; 
Thy hair is blowing soft and free. 

Its brown cones gleam amidst it high. 
Here, have my soul ! I fling it thee 

Nor would desire to venture by. 
No sharper rocks can shipwreck me 

Than headlands of a sunset sky. 



17 



UNDER THE VINE 

The garden has its square of sky, 
Its line of hedge, its narrow walk, 
Its shadow on the dial, late 

And early long, and gone at noon; 
There in its arbor linger I 
To overhear its flower-talk. 

Its young day-dreams inviolate, 

No longer lived than month of June 
And question of the stately yew 
Have other hearts such gardens, too? 



SOLUTION 

In eager zeal I went about, 
Anxious to work my problem out. 
Neighbors were full of ready speech, 
I learned a different remedy from each. 
And therefore was the more in doubt. 
At last I met your silence, O my Tree, 
And it divined my need unerringly. 



i8 



ELEGY 

White chips are scattered on the ground 
Where a king of trees has bled, 
And, above the prostrate dead. 

Ye hear the forest's funeral sound. 

*^ Under man's hand powerless laid 
Of our chief we are bereaved, 
He the death blow hath received 
From the cleavage of the blade. 

" Firmly veined his limbs, and white, 
Sinewed as befits a king, 
Careful he of nests where sing 

Now no more the plumaged-bright. 

" Strong of branch and rich of leaf, 
Clear of sap and deep of bark. — 
Underwoods, we bid you hark 

To our eulogy and grief. 

" Others yet, of royal seed. 
Bear even now the fatal scar ; 
Mute the heavens above and far, 

In our helpless hour of need. 

** Housing man, we shall be trod 
Under feet of pigmy folk. — 
Better were the withering stroke 

Of the lightning-blast of God." 



19 



TREASON 

Ensnared and over-bold, 

In domino of black and gold 

His intrigue masks; 

He answers all his mistress asks, 

Ah, the red lily's wiles ! 

I hear his whispers, see her smiles, 

Ho! herald bee, here's treachery. 

Affairs of state he clumsily 

To his last chosen tells. — 

Nov/ yuccas, ring your bells ! 

Soon will the garden be alive 

With the court secrets of the hive. 



IN MOTLEY 

The months its jester-guise adorn 

In green, in gold, in flame, 
V/ith bauble of the ready thorn 

It plays a tricky gam.e; 
The ever-blundering courtier-bee 

That, tired of nectar-lust, 
Desires its pungent remedy. 

It chokes with golden dust : 
Thus seems the barberry to be, 

'Midst retinue of flowers. 
Court-jester of the revelry 

That whiles away the hours 



20 



THE HIVE 

Above the meadow city 

Elave prelates made their home 
Rich-costumed and sonorous, 

They throng a mimic Rome : 
The sunlit air, their Corso, 

Their Vatican, the dome. 



MICA 

As by a rock I chanced to pass 

Lo! a tiny looking-glass 

Dropped, perchance, in flight and fear 

When my footstep sounded near. 

Have I made my heavy way 

On the folk of the ballet 

Dressing for the Vaudeville ? 

Hark ! Is that their laughter shrill ? 

Ah ! that I had eyes to see 

All their hidden revelry ! 



21 



METAMORPHOSIS 

Tangible flush, 

Audible hush, 

Dreams incarnate, 

Vermillion zest, 

Pearls, magnified 

Past estimate, 

The clouds consort in the West. 

In rapid change 

Their fancies ride, 

As manifold. 

As metamorphosis of old, 

An Alpine range. 

Sleuth-hounds that track the failing sun 

Till in full cry the pack's away ! 

Strange creatures and gigantic men 

Wizard-faced, that shift again. 

In some new, delirious scheme. 

Till, the mystic sequence done, 

Ashes of day 

Burn low, night comes supreme. 



22 



AN APOSTLE OF THE OAK 

I believe in the mighty oak 

Conceived by God, 

Born of the virgin sod, 
Suffered the woodman's stroke, 
Whose leaves were crucified 

By the frost's sting, 

And rose again in spring, 
Toward Easter heavens wide. 
At the right hand of Nature spread 

It heals the sick, 

Restores the quick. 
And broods above the dead. 
And in thy spirit mine believes, 

In temples of the catholic wood, 

Communion of the good. 
Made audient in the leaves. 
Then since new life thou hast in ken 

And pardon for who need, 

I face the east, repeat the creed, 
And standing cry Amen, 



23 



YELLOW JESSAMINE . 

What the flower tells to me 

I cannot show ; 

Nor can North-dwellers know 
How in the South, where hearts are free, 

How in the South, where jessamines blow, 
The air is loud with music, ear-unheard ; 

Whose echoes reach me here and now. 

And, whispering of flower and bird, 

Do all the South repeat. 

— Sounds to my distance bitter-sweet, 

Exiles know how. 



PSYCHE 

What stands between us, thou and I, 

Butterfly, floating by ? 

Thou hast earth's joy ; and I, earth's pain ; 

Thou hast freedom ; I, a chain ; 

Withal, thou lackest the divine, 

Yet have men made thee of their souls the sign, 



24 



PRELUDE 

Oh, sun-bright lad, why didst thou hearken death ? 
Thy hope was young, thine arm successful strong 
Hadst thou but once forseen how now to-day 
What lack of thee thy hearth-side undergoes 
And how the world was waiting for thy song! 

So might the song-bird on his northward way 
Mistake white orchards for the drifts of snows, 
And turn again in sudden, swift alarm. 
And they whose acres heard his lyric breath 
Bear now the hush on the bereaven farm. 



INTIMATIONS 

Oh strong October, and oh gentle-souled. 

Like some Norse hero on thy bare, brown arm 

Thou wearest death's wide bracelet-band of gold 
Red set in light of rubies; pledge and charm 

Of immortality, an heirloom old 

Thy talisman against life's old alarm. 



ST. LUKE'S SUMMER 

The mist that fills the hollows 
Dims with its silvery haze 

The willow's gleam, where swallows 
Built low in summer days. — 

A brooding curve that follows 
The brook's leaf-dappled maze. 

Above gray slabs it hovers, 
Where man his dead enrolls ; 

The tryst of parted lovers. 
Leaf-whirlwinds its patrols. 

And mystic writing covers 
Its monolith of souls. 



HARVEST 

In my October garden 

I go to solemn mass, 
As blithe and early risen 

As any kitchen lass. 

Dew-sparkles light the altars 
In many a leafy shrine. 

And to the glowing eastward 
The rererdos of vine. 

Before the bending corn sheaves 
That take the virgin's shape 

I taste in exaltation. 
The eucharist of grape. 



26 



BETROTHAL 

November is a sovereign, who weds his beggar-maid 
He leaves his throne of autumn gold, to greet 
her trembling there 
And though she is in russet garb so shabbily ar- 
rayed, 
He loves her for her gentleness and the sunshine 
on her hair. 



NUPTIALS 

A slow processional of hills 
Moves down the aisle of sky, 

The church is filled with stirring trees 
That watch the bride go by. 

Her wedding veiFs a haze of cloud ; 

The breeze, her Lohengrin : 
November is the groom whose charm 

Can Indian Summer win. 



27 



IN THE ARENA 

The maiden, Indian summer, 

Barbarian-fond of death, 
Rules Nature's coliseum 

And stands with bated breath 
While forests don their death-robes, 

But hide their Spartan grief 
And dress as for a pageant 

Each timid, faltering leaf. 
To them October's hemlock, 

No sombre death-draught yields, 
Where reds and yellows gleam within 

The stirrup-cup of fields. 



INDIAN SUMMER 

Like a girl's soft-blowing hair 
Is this golden-glinting air ; 
Like the sweet line of her face 
Are these dreamy mystic days. 
Like the soft touch of her hand 
Is the stillness on the land. 



28 



URN-BURIAL 

October keeps the passing of her dead, 

And all of kin are there ; — the autumn days 

Sigh for the summer at her funeral pyre. 

The flames creep out and up — first little tongues 

Dart red and yellow of forked maple twigs, 

And the notched sumac — here a flame of green, 

Amid the brands adds its pale driftwood lights. 

Until the winds set all the woods afire, 

And hillsides and the rivers catch the glow. 

— And when 'tis past, November's care shall place 

The ashes in the silver urn of frost. 



MATINS 

Little transient on the bough 
Joyous in November 
Wherefore singest thou ? 
Summer's fled. 
Leaves are dead 
Long ago ere now. 
Springtide's dreams, 
Summer's gleams 
How cans't thou remember? 
Bird-soul, teach me how. 



BLUE.HILL 

An ocean wave the mountain seems 

That leaps against the sky, 

And on its slopes are all the gleams 

Of breakers, running high : — 

Dark blue, clear green, the myriad lights 

Sea-tints and late leaves know. 

And as the sea-foam, curving white, 

I see its crest of snow, 

That when the low sun shines its way, 

Flushes and glows as sunset spray. 



THE FIRST SNOWFALL 

A white-robed line, the birches 
To first communion go ; 

One prostrate, ritual hour 
Young celebrants of snow. 



30 



EVENSONG 

A square tower set against the West, 

x\nd slender firs near by 
Make the low crescent brighter 

To the arrested eye. 
God's best and man's together 

Peace to the spirit show, 
While sunset winds are blowing 

The white dust of the snow. 



SCOTCH INVOCATION 

Thou of the sunlight, 
Thou of the starlight, 
God of the seasons 

Teach me to know 
How best to serve Thee 
Morning and evening 
Whether the hills wear 

Heather or snow. 



APOLLO AND THE CEDAR 

Soft is your cheek, my Dryad, 
Whose blush of rosy snow, 

Greets the young sun's appearing 
Above horizons low. 

Ah, who can guess the wonder 
That trees at sunrise know ? 



31 



THE GLACIER 

'Mid earth's white pyramids steadfastly set, 
I, nature's Sphinx, superior to time's stings, 
Am prison of creation's hidden things 

That cannot forth to light for ages yet. 

Man's day shall pass as a quick-closing door, 
Whose forty centuries are to me no more 

Than is his own ephemeral violet. 
God's methods only I can know, 
Who saw earth's mighty embryo ; 

A silent keeper who cannot forget. 

Great forces battle, heart-deep in my breast. 
Where are within me chained the souls of streams 
That struggle sunward with prismatic gleams 

Of captive colors yet by man unguessed ; 
My deep ice-molecules, bound each to each, 
Whose myriad passions strain for speech, 

Hold all the sun-fiames of the east and west, 
And these are kin to that day, centuries-slow, 
When God spoke mightily, and it was so, 

And the world moved from chaos into rest. 



32 



Into earth-anarchy these yearn again 
But only sunshine can unlock the gates 
Where the ice-torrent, ever baffled, waits 

In April's leash, and frets his straining chain. 
Down in the vale the peasants care to know 
Not if the sun be shining high or low, 

But tell the hour by the stream's wax or wane 
And, seeing me, whose presence does not fail, — 
Their great, stained, eastern glory of the vale, — 

They praise God's house for such a window-pane. 

Who deems man's fashion can supremely hate? 
Quick-sinewed, time-untaught to harbor harms, 
His deed must out, for fear his passion calms 

I, ice-enduring, centuries can wait 

In hate's white essence, though I seem to smile 
Or love, unurgently, an aeon's while. 

I could teach man to be all-passionate. 

And it may be, when the sun's heat burns low, 
That men shall warm them at my deep-set glow, 

Of ice fires that shall not, like suns, abate. 



33 



A TRUCE OF GOD 

Gone is the time at last, and the encounter done ; — 
Since the foe is outcast, since now my soul is won, 
Was it that years went past, or was it one ? 
Ask of the sun. 

After the storm at sea ride waves to shore. 
Until old landmarks be beacons no more, 
Can the 'longshoreman see life as before. 
When wreck is o'er ? 

They who recruit not cry, *^Self is immune, 
Sea-depths are unstirred by winds from the 

dune." — 
So might the lark deny earthquakes, rock-hewn ; 
Mid-winter, June. 

Yes, 'tis the inner shock teacheth man God, 
How of the veined rock knoweth the sod ? 
Miracle laughs at mock. At the priest's nod 
Wakens the rod. 

Yield Thou some countersign lest mortals fail 
To know the true divine. What can avail 
If he asks dregs for wine, tinsel for mail ? 
Thy face unveil ! 



34 



God, Thou art far to seek; answer the human ! 
Is the man strong or weak that yearns to woman ? 
Must the soul hush or speak, shun or court no man ? 
Prize friend or foeman ? 

Ah, but Thou, too, wast lone — sought out the 

earth. 
If then in heaven was known infinite dearth ? 
God one with man has grown, all his faith worth, 
Since the Christ's birth. 

After the siege is o'er, white shines the truce. 
Saved from a reef-bound shore, hark to the crews 
Setting the sail once more. Who could refuse 
This, the Christ-news ? — 



ISOLATION 

There is one ultimate word. 

One inmost sense of life 

In each unconscious human soul ; 

Its sense of self, its unknown name divine, 

Such words make up the wondrous whole 

Of God's great speech, but none have heard, 

Self, nor intimate, nor wife. 

One such soul-name, yours or mine. 



35 



'^I HAVE CALLED THEE BY NAME" 

In his all-comprehending hall of fame 

For each of us God has a separate name ; 

A strange, true summing of the all in each. 

Not as we would to men another teach 

By saying "He is honest, he is wise," 

Or, " He is selfish; him you may despise " 

Naming thereby one trait, and in our screed 

Miscalling that the man himself indeed. 

In God's rich speech a syllable can show 

More than the learning of our folio. 

Or sum a life in all its strength or ill, 

Its poverty or riches of the will. 

That will be all our judgment on that day 

When we have put aside earth's speech and way. 

— So live that when the roll is read above 

It shall be some derivative of love 

That thou dost hear the while He looks on thee 

From the great muster call of deity, 

And for thy new soul name there shall be shown 

Some welcome patronymic of his own. 



36 



TO MY HORSE, "CHEVALIBR" 

Chevalier, that speedest well, 
Quick of instinct to foretell 

How my thoughts would bid thee go, 

Or if faster, or if slow 
Sure some soul in thee must dwell ! 

When fear casts its sudden spell. 
And white rocks to monsters swell, 
I will cheer thee, speaking low, 
'^Chevalier ! " 

Ah, within thy rider dwell 
Fears he, too, cannot dispel. 
Sudden things that shadows throw 
On a path he does not know ; 
Can he hope thee to excel, 
Chevalier ? 



SMOKE 

I am the scroll of history for every land and age, 
And mark the progress of the race throughout its 

pilgrimage ; 
The camp-fire of the savage ; the tribal signal light ; 
The city's conflagration that rides the winds of 

night ; 
The industry of river-towns ; the onrush of the 

train ; 
The massacre of battle; — and the hearth-light once 

again. 



37 



FOREBODING 

Oh musing child without a city wall, 

Dost thou of thine own future dream at all? 

And from these bright-hued flowers turn thine 

eyes 
To witness what on yon green hill shall rise 
And what the way thy feet shall then have trod? 
— Ah little, lonely, waiting Son of God! 



INSULAR 

In a vast aether sea the planet swings, 
Inhabited by idlers, slow to rouse, 
Who dream they are the only race of men; 
Yet are they dotted on the map of worlds 
As but an uncouth, late-discovered folk, 
Unnoteworthy, since, systems yet beyond, 
There loom the proudly-peopled continents. 



38 



ELEMENTS 

Who would have dreamed the world? 

Thus intricate from chaos hurled. — 

Mountain and sea and berry, 

Man and woman and city; 

A smile to show one is merry, 

And a tear to offer one's pity, 

Yet is our human progress slow 

Since heaven on earth we do not know. 



IN FLORENCE 

Above St. Mary Flower 
The Campanile's grace 
Achieves the vision tower 
That lit Giotto's face. 

All dreams find incarnation 
That shirk no sacrifice, — 
Man's, of self-exaltation; 
Jehovah's, of the Christ 



39 



SONG AGAINST LOVE 

Love, I'll have no more of thee, 
Since thou canst unworthy be ! 
Fair words, unfair deeds are thine, 
I'll no longer at thy shrine 
I'll to service, right the wrong 
I'll to duty, with a song. — 
What is this? Love, art thou here? 
Then thy name I will not fear. 



HOMESPUN 

I sit within my oaken loom. 

And homely is the web I weave. 

I press the treadle. To and fro 

The high cross beam swings. Even so 

Our heavy fates move, I believe. 

At our own touch our joy or doom 

Nears, stays and passes. God must know- 

Who bids the useful colors grow. 



40 



COUNTERPOINT 

Songs of men are clarion ? women sing in minor ? 
Turn the music of their lives the truth of this to 

see: 
Man's birth is of earth's soil ? woman's is diviner ? 
In the fragrant, sunlit fields of life's anthology 
Float her moth-desires, in quest of nectar ever 

finer, 
u^ther-sprung, above his bloom spread unaspiring- 



'^ LIMITATION 

Not those that are bird-throated 

Yearn most of all for song, 

The weak are cognizant of strength 

As never are the strong. 

Refusal may be best of gifts 

To who divinely long. 



4T 



SONG 

Rocks and sands and a shining sea, 

Dashing surf and a sheltered lea, 

Ebb and flow, 

Sails that go. 

What is the chorus ye sing to me? 

Masts in the harbor, beneath the down. 

Fisher-faces, rough and brown, 

Sunset red. 

Hill of the dead, 

Fateful heavens that smile and frown. 



OFFERTORY 

Too tarnished is the ostentatious weight 
Bestowed by him who harbors pride and hate; 
The while the child's coin from a pure heart given 
Becomes a very argent gate of Heaven. 



THE CITY ON THE HILLSIDE 

Straight and slim the headstones stand ; 

The clustered chimneys of the underland. 

And, as from city dwellings men descry 

The thin white smoke stream upward to the sky, 

So souls, like smoke from fires just begun 

Perhaps rise from this city, one by one. 



42 



THE FACE OF MAN 

The face of man I watch in light and shade, 
Its changeful features in the balance weighed 
With here their heaviness and here their grace. 
And as its ancestry perforce I trace 
I am made glad at heart or shrink dismayed. 

What wildwood joys these curving lips invade? 
What city wrongs have made these eyes afraid? 
I read as very history of the race 
The face of man. 

Pre-human life its early part has played, — 
Fauna and flora mystically arrayed 
In ordered sequence up to latter days, — 
Working for aeons in untiring ways 
God hath not yet into His likeness made 
The face of man. 



HORIZON 

Ah world, thou art fair, sang the lark, who kne^x- 
The breath of a dome of spreading blue. 
Oh world, thou art fair, the lover cries 
To the firmament of his lady's eyes. 



43 



SLEEP 

Along the sinuous shore of dreams 

The tide is passionate, 
And on its crest my being seems 

To ride elate ; 
Tossed and blown where its surges go 
No more the bounds of earth to know. 

The passion of sleep is spent, 

Torn is its web, 
Like seaweed drifting sent 

On tides at ebb, 
My ken of self recaptures me 
And the dawn upwakes from the sea. 



THE KING IS DEAD 

His majesty has bowed before 

A greater majesty. 

For death, the king has come to bring 

The King of king's decree. 



44 



INSPIRATION 

Man shall not live by bread alone nay, but so as 

by fire, 
Without such he were breadless and chilled his 

life's desire 
Lit by the human hand-touch, whose hidden fires 

astart 
Can set the flames at ravage in the bracken of the 

heart 
And though time bid them smoulder in anthracite 

control 
Mined of the silent ages, red hot shall glow the 

coal. 
Yet the heat of the red is as nothing beside the 

heat of the white. 
And the holocaust of the spirit flames in the 

zenith's height. 
Blow, winds of heaven, upon such and scatter it 

afar 
Till the fire-brands of its burning make dull the 

solar star 
It needeth the other fires as the fuel for its flame 
And, walking unhurt amidst it, the prophets know 

its name. 



45 



VIGIL 

The mind its hilt, the heart its blade, 

My sword of life hangs strong, hangs bright* 

It flashes in sunlight, gleams in shade ; 
Above the altar there stirs a light 

As I kneel and pray to the Holy Maid — 
Oh teach me, Mary, to wield it right ! 

I stretch and bare thee my sword-arm 
Be it sure, be it strong to light, I breathe, 

And when is past the scathe and harm, 
Be it wise again the steel to sheathe, 

And gently to soothe the souFs alarm 
As I march the banner of peace beneath. 



KNIGHTED 

Her love-filled life, held up 
By a form, spirit-pale. 
Is to his heart its altar-cup 
Its vision-Grail. 



46 



FROM THE GHETTO 

He treasures the darkness of days gone by 
For the only light of his inner eye 
Set between dark and dark he stands, 
Forever placed in alien lands ; 
And they who have his birthright so despised 
How shall their daily insults teach him Christ ? 
He clings the closer to an outworn creed 
Within his Ghetto walls of scorn and need. 



CIRCUMSTANCE 

Beneath the dull eaves of a tenement 

My window crouches ; your commanding towers 

Look out on fields aglow with sun and flowers 
If thou on deeds of light ; I, of the dark am bent 
Let God be judge, who chose our firmament ; 

Yours, sunlit ; mine beset with smiting showers ; 
Mine hid with roofs and yours, star-evident: 

To judge alike such alien lives as ours 
No creed persuades me can be God's intent. 



47 



THE CITY STREET 

The city street is sprung as wrong from right 
How came this thing from God's, "Let there be 
light ?" 
Whose rays, that yet we see each morn unfold, 
Once from the new-set planets aureoled 
Looked on a world unpeopled, pure of night. 

Four-footed life learned how to stand upright 
And climbed up nature's stair to manhood's height 
Nor knew as yet the evil power of gold, — 
The city street. 

Narrow and dark where God's are broad and bright 
Man's thoroughfares flush red and shrink from 

sight. 
Is this our boast ; this tale too plainly told ? 
'Tis tarnish on our glitter and foul mold 
On our first fruits, who for green fields behold 
The city street 



48 



THE TENEMENT 

I was God's cube of light and air 

Wandered of breezes through, 
Euilded by Him foursquare 

And roofed by a bound of blue. 
And the echoes said when the work was done 
**Thou art made that man might behold the sun*^' 

Ye have bound me with fetters of brick, 

And pierced my heart with a stair 
And the clamor of crime and the unwatched sick 

That starve for the gain of your pride are there, 
"We have need,*' ye said, **of this empty space 
To be the home of our serving-race.'' 

I reck no ill ye have done me here. 
But to your poor and the God of such, 

Take heed less the contract cost you dear 
Who count your gains yet lose overmuch 

Ye that have walled away the light 

Must marvel not if there falleth night. 



49 



DWELLINGS 

The hillside bears its burden 

No less than city street, 

And yet old stony pastures 

Are softer to the feet 

Than heated city pavements, — 

Could this tall tenement 

Speak some remote old homestead, 

Then back and forth were sent 

What ken of human nature ! 

Home were in either one 

And yet how life grows fevered 

With lack of air and sun ! 



TOWN AND COUNTRY 

Squalor of city alleys 
Makes human life seem mean, 
Yet are not upland pastures 
Where cattle graze, unclean ; 
Man may be worse than bestial, 
Farmyard more pure than town, 
And the great eyes of oxen 
Might look a monarch down. 



50 



WHERE CHILDREN PLAY 

I rode one day in my carriage 

Down a street where children play, 

And the horses sped, for the hour had fled 

And I feared to be late, since on the grass, 

Long shadow lines began to pass 

And the gothic elms were gold with the sun 

That gleams in their aisles when the day is done 

And the children's eyes alight with its strength 

As they hushed their shouts for a moment's length 

Till the echoes died from the hills away, 

Down the street where children play. 

I rode one day in my carriage 

Down a street where children play, 

And the horses sped as those that fled 

When fear and evil and ill gave chase — 

And I turned away; I could not face 

Their noisy sport for the sudden shame 

Of the evil things we dare not name. 

Yet they watch, wide-eyed, in the sordid streets, — 

Children, whose every playtime greets 

The squalid fates that make their way, 

Down the street where children play. 



S^ 



THE FABRIC OF THE FIELDS 

The whole white of the prism-edged clouds, the 

whole blue of the sky, 
I would they were mine to merchant, that you had 

the power to buy, 
I would I could purchase for you the murmur of 

forest trees. 
Then would I station my booth at a city's kerb and 

cry,— 
"Ye that can boast at best but a withered square 

of blue 
Lo, here is a dome of it, free, for the coin of a plea 

from you, 
Ye whose despair crieth faintly, Water, water, I 

thirst, 
Come to my sunset acres, drink of their cooling 

dew." 

Ah, could I weave you the meadows, could I but 

deal in June, 
Vender of leisure and quiet, crier of river and dune, 
How would you, stifling and pallid, crowd from your 

alleys to see. 
How would I offer my wares without price in a 

sordid noon. 
Oh bodies, too bestially herded, oh souls that look 

out as through bars. 
How can the squalor of pavements guess of the 

glory of stars ? 
Come and recapture your birthright ; learn from 

your blatant streets. 
It is only God that maketh and only man that 

mars. 



52 



SIDNEY LANIER'S FLUTE 

Wrought by man's hand, beyond my power of 

choice. 
A master's fingers made my music whole; 
Lanier's life-breath granted me a soul; 
I have constrained an audience to rejoice 
What days he smiled at laughter of his boys, 
Or taught it tears, when into me there stole, 
His wife's unspoken sigh, her dear control 
Of tears, by love witheld from eyes and voice. 

Striving to comfort, I have known his touch 
The oftener for too poignant need of bread 
In early, urgent days in Baltimore; 
And yet again been plaintive overmuch. 
My music from a vision-haunted bed. 
The prescience of a surely-closing door. 

PINE-WOODS 

You ask me to portray the forest pines, 

That were to undertake the human heart, 

So does it of their murmurings seem a part, 

So well the wood the need of man divines. 

That were to limn the mountain range that shines 

And all the glories of the surf impart. 

You ask a master-touch, unerring art, — 

No better theme had ever sonnet's lines. 

Oh songful glooms, where glints the low red gold, — 
Hem of the mantle of the passing Lord, — 
Oh peace that ever here is manifold. 
Oh slender needle-notes, in minor chord 
Upon earth's score close-written for an old 
And many-manualed infinite keyboard. 

53 



WACHUSETT 

Wachusett, I am home when at thy door 
That opens outward to the land and sea, 
And bids me scan years that are yet to be, 
That opens inward on what is no more 
And shows my fathers in their days of yore. 
Their southward-facing homesteads, field and tree, 
Whose toil, decreeing that their sons be free 
Gave liberally from out a hard-earned store. 

Thy far, free foliage, or sky-touched snow 

Beyond our cities takes a cloud-drawn breath. 

Teaching our dun-color to know thy blue, 

God's touchstone, keeping our faint struggle true. 

Amid our share of pain, our hint of death 

Whose eyes must watch the old time generation go. 



NEW ENGLAND 

A scanty income from the hills is thine. 

In stubborn conquest of unyielding sod; 

The wage of men that went rough-clad, hard-shod 

Yet are to-day a corner stone and sign. 

They who saw massive roots of trees entwine 

Dividing bowlders fast beneath the sod. 

And thereby gathered patience talked with God, 

Unconscious-yearning towards things divine 

Fitly from prophet and from patriarch 
They named their sons, however grown uncouth 
And, as relentless as the plow-share's mark. 
Furrowed the discipline of work in youth. 
And now, with fibre of the trunk and bark, 
A race staads heir to God's wide-acred truth. 

54 



THE ORGANIST 

The music surges outward from the keys, 
To my desire my fingers speed seems slow 
For I would teach the dim-lit church to know 
The soul of winds that bend the forest trees 
And hollow out God's open palm of seas, 
Whose errant listings wander to and fro 
Upon the earth and blend, majestic slow, 
In chords that echo matchless harmonies. 

The music stills — the audience stirs and sighs 

In mute response, as from a single heart 

Though myriad heard the songs that were it sung 

For one has journeyed other lands among. 

One has in his own future played his part, 

And one has looked in his dead sweetheart's eyes. 



THE CHAMBEH OF LIFE 

Pervading dark, with points of lesser dark. 
And objects dim, well-known in light of day, 
An open window wherein finds its way. 
The gleam of stars, a hush that bids me hark, 
While on my hearth there glows a fading spark; 
I watch its pulsing till my senses sway 
And sleep enfolds me until dawn of day 
Recalls me with the early singing lark. 

My room of life encircles me obscure, 
Suggesting forms known in some earlier light, 
I wait the day that shall my eyes assure 
Yet meanwhile rest and am content with night 
So it prepare me better to endure 
The morning call to come, the sunrise sight. 
L.ofC. SS 



THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS OVER A SUNKEN 
SEABOARD 

As in old days we skirted thy shore, 

Now that the waters cover thee 

Yet we fly over thee, 

Faithful as aeons before. 

Far out beneath the breakers roar 

Does a shadow of our flight 

Penetrate thy ocean night 

Who art sea-depth that once with snow wast hoar? 

We follow the vanished curve 

Of thy coast where the savage played 

Like a child among thy sands. 

Tradition-led, we dare not swerve 

And from our course have watchers made 

Their maps of prehistoric lands. 

A SEA-CHANGE 

The sea's a master-dramatist of life 

And writes its plays upon old vellum sands; 

Its language one for however alien lands — 

Derelict spars with tales of shipwreck rife, 

The melodrama of the fisher-wife. 

Then, siudden smiling, on its stage of strands 

It turns to comedies, joins lovers' hands; 

Yet most it sings of human grief and strife. 

Untiringly it toils, this Shakspere sea, 
Tho' never one were there to weep or smile 
Its audient horizons circle breathlessly 
Its shifting scenes of continent or isle 
Yet though it boasteth immortality 
^*There shall be no more sea,'' it hath been said, 
ere while. 

56 



THE CITY 

Since man hath had of God green fields for home, 
He hath made haste to stain them with his towns, 
Since God's free air hath blown across the downs 
It hath been tainted with the mono-chrome 
Of trade's black breath that vilifies the dome 
Even of the minster that but vainly crowns 
The river-height, nor with its chiming drowns 
The cruel wheels, the epileptic foam. 

Not all Christ's centuries have set us free, 
God's census comes that here shall, as of old 
Find peradventure but its righteous few, — 
And ye whose power is wrought of infamy, — 
For those old cities, less defiled by gold. 
More tolerable it shall be than for you. 



TO INK SPILLED ON MY DESK 

Ugly disfigurement and useless blot. 

Had I indeed a ready writer's pen. 

Thou mightest have been words to move all men; 

I fancy thee perhaps some mystic plot 

Once overlooked by Marlowe, or forgot 

Within the Mermaid tavern, dear of ken. 

And now in later fashion here again 

Too human-hearted to have come to naught. 

These are my dreams; thou merely art instead 

Emblem of blunder, once more sent to shame 

Me into better action when I think 

That we, descendant from the fluent dead, 

Potential immortality may claim ^ 

In each dumb soul, — as in each blot of ink. 

57 



WHAT FLUSH MIGHT HAVE SAID 

Have other dogs such mistresses as mine? 
White-handed, gentle-voiced, so kind of touch 
That I, who love the outdoor world so much. 
Where nothing seeks my freedom to confine, 
Would rather crouch within, nor think to pine, 
If I can make a smile hunt down a tear, 
Or, true in vigil offer my dumb cheer 
As a dog may, before a human shrine. 

But while I kept her door,- a stranger's hand 
Beckoned its sudden mandate, hard to dare; 
I did my best, but could not understand. 
And yet I think — if dogs man's joy can share — 
That as I listened for her word's command. 
So did she wait the footstep on the stair. 



THE ARNO 

Lovers of noontide did the Arno christen 
The golden river of the Tuscan vale, 
A ring whose flashing gem could all else pale, — 
Florence, whose lights upon arts finger glisten 
In lover's troth. Yet when the moon has risen 
When Ponte Vecchio feels not yet its light 
And Santa Trinita is newly bright. 
Lung' Arno's windows whisper, if you listen, 
Of azure-silver. Day's dull, tawny gold 
Falls off as raiment from a nymph put by ; 
The stream from which the lilies whitely rise 
Flashes and softens as the hours unfold: 
Gold is less precious from a full supply 
And here old silver is the rarer prize. 



58 



NAUSICAA 

A boy, at task beneath his tutor^s frowns, 
Aside would fain have his dull lessons thrown. 
Scornful of classics, his eyes eager grown 
For the broad window's glimpse of clamorous towns 
When from the tangled web of verbs and nouns 
A sudden comprehension came; there shone 
White-armed Nausicaa, her robes wind-blown. 
Upon the sea-girt margin of the downs. 

I made my daily tasks of no avail 
And all their teachings truant-wise defied 
When sudden sprang from the else-idle tale 
Thou my Nausicaa, by the full flood tide 
Of my mid-morning's durance and the veil 
Blew from my sight, and love stood defied. 



ENDYMION 

He walketh open-handed, open-eyed. 

And by the door of the world's needs and woes 

Keeps sleepless vigil. Therefore no one knows 

That in a valley by a river-side 

In dreamful sleep his soul to earth has died 

Where to all evil things his senses close, — 

He from the gods has won a sweet repose. 

For they have loved him all men else beside* 

You who amid earth's cities take your way 
Yet pass the quiet valley where he lies, — 
A youthful form amid the flowers and grass, — - 
Step lisjhtly lest you wake him as you pass, 
And see fear darken in his startled eyes. 
In whose still soul Endymion sleeps to-day. 

59 



IN OMAR'S TENT 

A little cup my life ; a beaker, thine, 
Hold them aloft, behold them as they shine, 
Each with its gleam, each with its mantling 

foam. — 
Knowest thou which holds the better-vintaged 

wine? 



THE HEAT OF THE DAY 

He followed in his youth a radiant star 

But now the years have set those days afar 

Eor confidence to disillusion grew, 

And he who glowed to make is happy not to mar. 



1/ BROTHERHOOD 

Hast thou of God endured one bitter year? 
Then look abroad upon the far and near. 
And thou shalt not lament the destiny 
That has to thee the human heart made clear. 



60 



A DREAMER OF THE GHETTO 

I sing of morning stars and opening flowers, 
God knows my life has kept the darker hours, 
Yet even the shelterless in dreams may see 
Against the east the sky-line of his towers. 



ANNIVERSARIES 

Events of years gone our hearts celebrate 

With smiles or tears. Mayhap from Heaven's 

gate, 
Angels look forward on the deeds of men 
And these betimes in song anticipate. 



TREASURES OF THE EAST 

Monarchs their gems on crown and sceptre prize 
Ladies, their silks of myriad lavish dyes. 
I, the poor sailor of a stubborn sea, 
And clothed and crowned with each supreme sun- 
rise. 



6i 



RAIMENT 

Look to the burnished moths, the autumn trees, 
The wardrobes of the flowers and birds and bees. 
Not all your factories of haggard men 
Have wrought a fabric like to one of these. 



RESTORED 

My down-filled pillow will not bring me rest 
Yet soft are tree-trunks .and the earth's rock- 
breast. 
Dear mother nature, singing in the pines, 
Teach tired towns to know thine arms are best. 



IMMUNE 

Out-doors, I know, there is no empty chair 
To mock you with its endless "why?'' or "where?" 
Seek then those mates who only never die 
Whose gossip is more prayerful than your prayer. 



PARADOX 

In prayer of God his happiness he sought 
Urging whereof he deemed it must be wrought, 
— Ah, the conflicting prayers of wayward men 
That to be answered must be set at naught! 



FAINT-HEART 

There are who boldly woo and boldly win 
And those who falter, as in conscious sin. 
Ah, ladies, trust not to the outward show, 
But rather look the faithful heart within. 



CRISIS 

By the electric hand of God drawn out. 
From customary scabbard, lest it rust, 
Into the thick of action and of rout, 
A naked, quivering blade the soul is thrust. 



63 



ACTION 

With some the sword of life hangs sheathed still 
Some use it as a foil to show their skill ; 
Grasp thou its hilt and forth to civil war, 
To prove its temper at thy captain's will. 



THE KISS 

A pretty passion of our infancy, 
And mark of other lands' formality, 
Thou art a master-linguist of all speech, — 
And once wert man's worst deed of infamy. 



CHARACTER 

XapdKro<^ 
Oh furrow in the useful field of God, 
With thy uprooted daisies in the sod 
Cometh a harvest month which compensates 
For ploughshares and rough horse-hoofs, iron-shod. 



64 



LEASE 

Within four walls each life is resident 
Wherein, my friend, shall thine and mine be spent? 
For fate gives every tenant-soul its choice 
Of prison cell or four-square firmament. 



DEATH AND THE SCULPTOR 

[DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH] 

Absorbed, upon the Sphinx we labor all, 
Deeming success within our early call — 
Unconscious that the angel waiting stands 
With signal that shall unexpected fall. 



FOLIO 

Oh book, bound in morocco, edged in gilt, 
With man's short-comings, God's compassion filled. 
The index thou of yet increasing works. 
Upon the shelf of life that God has built. 



65 



IN THE VINEYARD 

Art weak ? A little weight shalt tire thy hand. 
Art strong ? A grievous thing shalt crush thee not; 
Art weak and strong ? Then shalt thou understand 
And lend thy shoulder where the noon is hot. 



DISASTER 

Hooded, inert, and heavy on the wrist 

The falcon broods, till an iinblinded hour 

Flashes a summons he cannot resist 

And shows the frightened prey within his power. 



MUSIC 

Call me away from my labor, dear notes of the 

vibrating strings, 
Lending oblivion, granting to me of a bird the 

wings, 
Then my dream-poised spirit sing into strength 

again. 
Send me forth, never so eager, into the heart 

of things. 



66 



A GUEST OF OMAR 

All things of men and nature Omar felt, 
Yet sang a mocking song the while he knelt, 
A master of his craft, he wrought his tents, 
And I awhile in one of them have dwelt. 



67 



Notable New Poetry 

Cloud, Virginia Woodward 

A REED BY THE RIVER. 12 mo. cloth, 

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Lanier^ Clifford 

APOLLO AND KEATS on Browning, A Fantasy 

and other poems. 12 mo. antique boards, gi.50. ** This 
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The author is the only brother of the lamented Sidney Lanier. 
His verses have the same exquisite lightness and delicacy, and 
the same devotion to the music of thought as vs^ell as language. ' ' 

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Thomas^ Edith M. 

THE DANCERS, and other Legends and Lyrics. 

12 mo. cloth ornamental ^1.50. '' There is something about 
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SONNETS AND LYRICS. 12 mo. antique 

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Wetherald^ Ethelwyn 

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special purpose and materials, is faultless." 

— Saturday Night, Toronto. 

Richard G. Badger^ Boston 

The Gorham Press 



ijUH 5 ' 



LIBRARY OF 

■nil 

016 215 




